Alesis QS8(TM)

July 12, 1996 -- Alesis Corporation celebrated the Los Angeles premiere of their new QS8(TM) 64 Voice 88 Key Expandable Master Synthesizer with a clinic and concert featuring keyboard virtuoso Keith Emerson. Held on the evening of Tuesday July 2, 1996, the event was a successful co-promotional effort between Alesis and Guitar Center.

"The QS8 roll-out is the perfect example of our new co-promotional program at work," said Douglas White, Alesis' Director of Sales. "By combining our internal promotional resources with those of our dealers, we cause a larger segment of our potential customer base to become aware of Alesis' product line and specific events that relate to Alesis. The end result, of course, will be better traffic in the stores and expanded sales numbers. Co-promotion will become an essential part of the symbiotic relationship between dealers and manufacturers, and Alesis is happy that our first large-scale efforts with the program have been immensely successful."

Alesis' CPP (co-promotional program) is designed to help dealers place advertising in local and regional publications, stage events, and perform other actions that promote the sales of Alesis equipment. The CPP lets Alesis contribute funds for these purposes based on percentiles of dealers' sales numbers over specified time periods.

The QS8's Los Angeles premiere was held at Guitar Center's Hollywood location. Over 200 people filled the store's large Pro Audio arena for the clinic/concert, which was advertised in local music magazines and promoted with a large banner outside the Sunset Boulevard storefront. The event began with a demonstration of the QS8's sounds and functionality by Alesis keyboard clinician David Bryce. The standing-room-only crowd was then treated to an hour-long show by Emerson, who used Alesis' QS8 and QS6 keyboards to perform some of his most well-known compositions like "Touch and Go", "Fanfare For The Common Man", "Hoedown" and "Tarkus". Emerson played several songs with a full backing band as well as a solo performance that highlighted the QS8's built-in 8 Megabyte Stereo Grand Piano sound.

"Keith Emerson has played an instrumental part in the development of the QS8," said Jim Mack, Alesis' Director of Marketing. "His incomparable knowledge of both acoustic and electronic instruments was of great value to our sound development team. Now, after his involvement in this co-promotional event, it's apparent that Keith has also contributed to the sell-through of Alesis' flagship synthesizer."

The Alesis QS8 features a full-size 88-key weighted hammer-action keyboard with aftertouch and release velocity, resulting in an extremely piano-realistic feel. It incorporates 16 megabytes of onboard sound ROM, expandable to 32MB with two PCMCIA sound card slots. The QS8's collection of sounds includes a phase-accurate stereo grand piano voice, as well as a full complement of all-new organs, strings, drums/percussion, brass, woodwinds, and rhythmic/sonic loops. It also features several banks of both new and classic synth textures, including waveforms from Keith Emerson's famous analog modular synthesizer. The QS8's extensive master controller features include four fully-assignable real-time control sliders as well as pitch and modulation wheels and inputs for a sustain pedal and two assignable pedals. The QS8 also features advanced onboard effects, an ADAT Optical Digital Interface and a built-in serial data port . The QS8 includes a CD-ROM in Mac and Windows format that includes sequencing, editing, and sample import/playback software, demo sequences, extra sounds and much more. Suggested retail price for the QS8 is $1,999 (US), making it the most affordable fully-weighted 88-key synthesizer available.

For more information, visit their web site at www.alesis.com.